Samsung’s Galaxy Book Pro is poised to shake up laptops — including MacBooks - Tom's Guide

With AMOLED screens and tight Samsung phone integration, Samsung's Galaxy Book Pro laptops could be huge.

There's four new Windows machines — the entry-level Galaxy Book, the flagship Galaxy Book Pro and Galaxy Book Pro 360, and the gaming-focused Galaxy Book Odyssey — all packing beefy components into svelte, attractive frames.

Notably, two of Samsung’s new laptops -- the Galaxy Book Pro and Galaxy Book Pro 360 -- sport OLED screens, which are still a rarity in the laptop market.

I think AMOLED displays are going to be the next big thing in laptop design, and the few laptops with OLED screens we’ve tested -- among them Samsung’s own Galaxy Chromebook -- have wowed us with their vibrant colors and deep blacks. .

Samsung says it expects a number of other companies to release laptops with 90Hz OLED screens this year, and it’s a safe bet that its own Galaxy Book Pro and Pro 360 will serve as a showcase for these new displays.

If the screens on these new Galaxy Book Pros look anything like the gorgeous 4K OLED display we saw on Samsung’s Galaxy Chromebook earlier this year, they’re sure to stand out -- and that’s exactly what Samsung needs if it wants to build a bigger presence in the US laptop market.

Of course, not all of the new Galaxy Books have AMOLED screens; both the budget-minded Galaxy Book and the gaming-focused Galaxy Book Odyssey will ship with more traditional 15.6-inch TFT LCD displays.

So far Samsung has only told us that the Galaxy Book Odyssey is going on sale in Korea at first, with no further details on whether it will appear state-side.

The Galaxy Book Odyssey is most notable for being the first laptop we’ve seen to include Nvidia’s new GeForce RTX 3050/3050 Ti GPUs, which could help it deliver remarkable performance in the latest games.

What is certain is that Samsung is going hard on promoting the Galaxy Book Pro and Galaxy Book Pro 360 as flagship laptops here in the US.

Both of the Galaxy Book Pro laptops will ship with support for Link to Windows and Microsoft Your Phone, apps which allow you to connect your laptop to your (Android) smartphone to do things like run phone apps directly on your desktop, take calls, and easily access your photos, messages, and notifications. .

Plus, the Galaxy Book Pro laptops ship with the SmartThings app so you can control SmartThings-compatible devices on the network (like appliances, lights, and thermostats) right from the laptop.

That’s a long, complicated way of saying the Galaxy Book Pro laptops should have a lot of neat ways of interacting with your Android devices, especially if those devices are made by Samsung.

If these features work well, it will give Samsung device owners a compelling reason to make their next laptop a Samsung Galaxy Book Pro, and help these new laptops stand out in an otherwise crowded market.

As exciting as it is to see Samsung making a big push into the laptop market — which is currently booming, thanks to COVID-19 — we have to wait and see if these new Galaxy Books can compete with what the big PC vendors bring to the table this year.